Mar 22, 2020 - 22 silos and a few more bits of art UPDATE

Hi All, 22 silos seen, 9000 kms covered over 7.5 weeks so just to annoy you here they all are with their locations and the artist names, it’s been a fun trip and we are probably lucky we came home when we did due to the ever tightening of rules especially for those travelling. The last 3 photos were of a silo that was our favourite, the look on the dogs face, his shiny nose are all so real and well done. We hope you enjoyed the journey as much as we did. As ever Mum and Dad GM and GD UM and AA Anne and Marco

Mar 19, 2020 - Day 54 to Gold Coast -UPDATE NOTES

Hi All, After West Wyalong we headed to Young. Before we tell you about Young we must add that the 1st photo of the series this time is of the Hay Plains, desolate, treeless, flat but not boring, it’s just different, the photo tells the story. Young is famous in NSW for cherries, predominately at Christmas time and Anne remembered going there every year as a girl with her parents to get their Christmas supply. There still is a bakery that cooks cherry tarts, beautiful, we went back every day for more, of course we have attached a photo...

Mar 17, 2020 - Reflections

Tue Mar 17 - Day 23 Reflecting back - Was it a great holiday? YES it certainly was. Lots of resting, reading, relaxing and reflecting in the writing of this blog. Reflecting back - Anything Go Wrong? Nah! Nothing major. Just the door is damaged and won’t separate. The Air Conditioner doesn’t cool anymore. The awning is destroyed (probably hail damage) and has to be replaced. Nope! Nothing much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Reflecting back - COVID-19 Pandemic and the ensuing panic. Even reflecting on the Media’s role in unnecessarily feeding the...

Mar 16, 2020 - Kingscliff to Brisbane

Mon Mar 16 - Day 22 Guess what? - It’s blue skies all over. Must be time to go home. Not much to do this morning. All done and away without fuss and back home by 10:30. Gained an hour at the border. It was an uneventful run home, taking the van to our church’s spacious grounds to enable ferrying our goods and chattels back to the house 500m away. After a cuppa Ron returned to the van to wash it and wait for The Awning Man to come and give a quote on it’s replacement which he did about 5:00pm. He tells us it has been damaged by hail and...

Feb 23, 2020 - Back to Nature

Arrived at Jane's around 1am this morning. Then after a few hours sleep we were wide awake. So tonight will be a very early to bed. Jane and I walked to the beach this afternoon and spotted thousands of soldier crabs, then the rainbow lorikeets were having a lovely time nibbling the fruit from the umbrella tree. It's quite humid due to the rain on and off today, so slowly does it until we acclimatise....

Feb 23, 2020 - van to church for packing

SUN Feb 23 - Day -1 The recent rain event has given us 450mm in the home rain gauge in a bit over 2 weeks. Wow!! Lots of people prayed for rain and now we have a lot of rain. So when the weekend came to take the van off the property at Samford, the creek bed we had to drive through was running at knee height. Take the van out??? No can do. So we put the trip back a week. A couple of nights later the creek was running at about waist height. But hey! Who’s complaining? Not us. We prayed for it - we got it. Join the frogs and enjoy...

Dec 14, 2019 - Springbrook National Park

Trails, Views and Kangaroos Day 100 The sun is out again and it looks like we’re in for a good day except for the fire haze that’s still about. We have decided to visit Springbrook National Park, which is southwest of Coolangatta on our way to Coffs Harbour. We enter the address on our app and find we have to travel North to Mudgeeraba which will be a 100km detour as this is the only road into and out of the park. The traffic is horrendous and we get lost (yet again) ending up at Tweed Heads. This is a lovely town just over the New South...

Dec 11, 2019 - Coolangatta

The Gold Coast Day 97 Surfers Paradise The drive to Coolangatta takes us back towards Brisbane where we pick up the Pacific Highway to the Gold Coast. As we drive, we pass a number of theme parks including Dreamworld, Movie World and Wet’n’Wild. We ask Marcus if he would like to go to one, but he really isn’t bothered much to our relief. The roller coasters can be seen towering above the tree tops. Leaving the M1 we head to Southport for a drive along the coast. Traffic is heavy and we are bumper to bumper until we turn south on highway 2....

Dec 10, 2019 - Toowoomba

Historical Toowoomba Day 96 The drive into Toowoomba takes in wide tree-lined streets with views of the surrounding mountains. Downtown has streets laid out on a grid which is easy to navigate and we park up on Neil Street. We have a leaflet for the Cultural and Legal Precinct Historic Walk and decide to follow this to get a flavour of the area. The Precinct is bounded by 4 streets; Neil, Margaret, Ruthven and Herries and is an area rich in historical buildings including the post office, churches, the court house, city hall, hotels,...

Dec 9, 2019 - Glass House Mountains

Volcanic Plugs Day 95 The morning is yet again misty, these fires are having an awful effect on the environment. We are soon packed and ready to continue our journey. Although we are driving to Toowoomba, west of Brisbane we take a detour north to Beerburrum and the Glass House Mountains National Park. As we travel between Beerburrum and Beerwah on the Steve Irwin Way we enter forestry land where US pines are grown for timber. Passing fields of pineapples, we suddenly see a pointed mountain with thick green covered slopes. This is the...

Dec 8, 2019 - Brisbane Culture

Galleries and Swimming Day 94 Today we are going to have a day of culture so after breakfast we head to the South Bank and the Cultural Centre. The GOMAB is the museum of Modern Art and the first building we come to. We enter a light and airy four storey building which is free to the public. The first exhibit is a 20-foot long sculpture of coral behind glass. There are examples of all the different corals we have seen whilst snorkelling and some we have not. We spend at least two hours perusing the different galleries. There are examples...

Dec 7, 2019 - Brisbane River

Kangaroo Point and New Farm Day 93 It is misty this morning due to the bush fires west of Brisbane and we are glad that we went to Mt Coot-tha yesterday whilst it was clear and we had the fantastic views. We have been watching the Ferries zigzag back and forth across the river between North Quay and the South Bank and decide that this will be a good way of seeing the city from a different perspective. The North Quay stop is just five minutes away and both the CityCat and CityHopper Ferries stop here. We decide on the later as this is a...